Tom McCoy's Farewell Email to Fellow AMDers

Friday July 2nd, 2010

To the great employees of AMD:

This is my 16th and last year of executive leadership at AMD. It is time to say goodbye.

In early July 1993, I was in my office of my law firm in Los Angeles when an old friend, a founding 
member of the AMD Board of Directors, called. AMD was in a complex and multifaceted contract and 
intellectual property litigation battle with Intel, a battle that was not going well. He asked me if 
I would meet with Jerry Sanders, the Founder, Chairman and CEO of AMD, and Rich Previte, the President 
and Chief Operating Officer of the company, about taking over lead outside counsel responsibility. My 
conversations with Jerry and Rich led to a 17 year AMD adventure that ends today.

I dove into the crisis in mid-1993 with an army of lawyers from my firm, and we were fortunately 
successful in turning back the tide. Along the way, I forged a close counselor relationship with 
Jerry and his team, and with the Board of Directors. In early 1995, I left my firm and joined AMD as 
General Counsel. I vowed I would stay no longer than four years before returning to my firm, long 
enough to build a world-class law department and IP portfolio for a great little company. Obviously, 
I found more to do and I stayed a bit longer than I had planned.

The chapters of my professional life at AMD have been rich indeed: The birthing of the AMD K5 
microprocessor. (Yes, it was a big die, and it was late, but it worked and it proved we could design 
great proprietary x86 microprocessors from the ground up.) The acquisition of NexGen, and the creation 
of the AMD K6 MMX microprocessor, later infused with dynamic power management and 3D instructions. The 
building of Fab 25 in Austin, and the astounding success of the Submicron Development Center (SDC) in 
Sunnyvale. The pioneering of flash memory technology, and a very successful joint venture with Fujitsu, 
later unified and spun out as Spansion when flash memory devolved into a commodity business. The ever-
shaping of the company to be centered as an innovator and scrappy competitor to Intel in advanced x86 
technologies, resulting in the creation of Vantis out of our PLD business (then sold to Lattice 
Semiconductor) and the creation of Legerity out of our telecommunications business (then sold to 
Francisco Partners). And most near and dear to me, the bold strategic move into Dresden to build our 
advanced technology fabs. I remember walking the field we ultimately bought in Wilschdorf, assuring 
myself that it would be big enough for three clean rooms, a dream we had that is now coming into reality. 
In more recent years, I am particularly proud of the transformational moves we made beginning with 
leading the world into a seamless transition to x86-64bit computing, the acquisition of ATI and the 
creation of a Fusion processor powerhouse, the investment from Mubadala followed by the partnership with 
ATIC in the game-changing creation of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and, yes, of course, my little Project Slingshot 
and the fight for a fair and open marketplace for our technology.

Along the way, I have had the privilege of counseling the only three CEOs in the history of the company, 
Jerry Sanders, Hector Ruiz and Dirk Meyer. With Dirk up and running with a new leadership team that 
includes the veteran hand of my chosen successor, Harry Wolin, I can leave now with great pride and 
satisfaction. The big transformational moves are done, and successfully so. And now it is up to each of 
you to execute with excellence to fulfill the dream. I know you all can and will do it, that 
will be thankful and that shareholders will be rewarded.

As to my leadership responsibilities, earlier this year I transferred my corporate development team to 
Marty Seyer, who is doing an excellent and creative job as Chief Strategy Officer. Today, I am handing 
off my world class Public Affairs team, led by Allyson Peerman, to Harry. And as to my first child, the 
law department, I handed off the mantle of General Counsel to Harry years ago, and he has done a 
fantastic job.

To all of you who have worked for me over the years - in Legal, Public Affairs, Corporate Development, 
HR, Security, Global Facilities, Environmental Health & Safety, IT, PR and Employee Culture and 
Communications - I cannot thank you enough. What a pleasure it has been to work with you and for you. 
You are just the greatest.

Finally, I have to say a word about my senior executive assistant, Peggie O’Malley, who retires from AMD 
tomorrow after more than 30 years of service to AMD senior executives. She was my right hand from the day 
I joined AMD to this very day nearly 16 years later. Whatever success I have enjoyed at the company, she 
shares it with me.

Outside of AMD, I will probably be known as “Intel’s Worst Nightmare,” harking to a Fortune article and 
associated picture of me that published in 2006. But I do not want to be remembered inside of AMD this way. 
I would like to be remembered as a leader who cared deeply about the employees of the company and its 
values-based culture, a leader who never gave up, who built great teams and leaders, and who relentlessly 
preached three rules: everything with integrity, everything at the steeple of excellence and everything 
with a healthy sense of humor to weather the storms and the ordeals of change. Later in my career, I added 
a fourth rule, which is really an outcome of the first three: everything with confidence.

History has proved me right about the timeless truth that leadership is a service occupation, that without 
integrity all leaders fail and with terrible and unfair harm to their colleagues and organizations, and 
that we are all, each and every one of us, vital leaders at work, at home and in our communities.  
Consistent with that essential and timeless truth, I sign off to you now, imploring you all to be 
Lighthouses of Values in your leadership in all aspects of your life. It is easier said than done.

God bless you, and God bless AMD. Please remember to be a Lighthouse.